“BROADENING THE MOVEMENT:
FROM REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS TO REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE”

A conversation about the intersections of race, class, gender and reproductive health advocacy

Featuring MIRIAM YEUNG, Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum

MONDAY, April 19th, 5:30pm
NIEBUHR HALL, N123, Dinner will be provided

RSVP to ydssems4rj@gmail.com

Lifting Prophetic Voices for International Family Planning

Seminarians for Choice works to prepare and equip future clergy and religious leaders, ordained and lay, to work for Reproductive Justice. To support seminarians in their studies and to encourage and develop the use of preaching as a prophetic tool, RCRC is proud to announce its first Seminarians for Choice Sermon Contest!

Sermon Topic

America has a moral imperative to support family planning and reproductive health work around the world.

The specific direction to take is up to you, but the sermon should include a call for the US to give greater support to international family planning.  Attached, please find a fact sheet from the United Nations about the need for increased US support of international family planning and reproductive health.

Prizes

The author of the winning sermon will receive $500. Two runner ups will each receive $250.

Eligibility

Seminarians, rabbinical students and other students who are preparing for positions of religious leadership, whether ordained or lay are encouraged to apply. Clergy who are already ordained are not eligible for this contest.

Rules

Sermons must be the original work of the submitter and must not have been previously published. Copyright belongs to the author/submitter of the sermon. All quotations must be documented. RCRC will reserve the right to publish and print submitted sermons or otherwise make them available through newsletter, website, or other means. Individuals are limited to submit one sermon per contest but are welcome to submit for this as well as later contests in subsequent semesters.

Sermons should be submitted electronically as an email attachment to Rev. Matthew Westfox, mwestfox@rcrc.org.  They should be double spaced and written in MS word or other similar word processor format. The sermon should include a cover page which provides the seminarian’s contact information, denominational affiliation (if any), school attended and degree program.

Entry and Contest Dates

Currently accepting submissions.  Contest deadline is May 1, 2010.  Award winners will be announced on June 1^st.

A conversation about the intersections of race, class, gender and reproductive health advocacy
Featuring MIRIAM YEUNG, Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum

MONDAY, April 19th, 5:30pm
Location TBD, Dinner will be provided
RSVP to ydssems4rj@gmail.com

Summary of the Film: “Listen Up! New Voices for Reproductive Justice takes a socially conscious look inside the Women’s Movement.  Atlanta based filmmaker, N’Dieye Gray Danavall, travels to Washington, D.C. to follow several feminist groups as they work to organize and prepare for the groundbreaking 2004 March for Women’s Lives.  Intense with desire, “Listen Up!” punches away at the over-insinuated identity of the Women’s Movement by giving ear to the voices of women of color who have been in the trenches all along.  Danavall works to put a new face to the movement as female activists express their struggles, frustrations, and hopes for its future.”  More info on the film can be found here.

Questions and concerns raised during the follow-up conversation will carry over into a discussion led by Miriam Yeung, Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, on Monday, April 19th.

The workshop will be led by the Rev. Matthew Westfox from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

RSVP to ydssems4rj@gmail.com.  Please ensure that you can fit the full training program in your schedule on the 4th.  The training fee will be waived for students.

The New Haven Independent covered the event and Byllye Avery, the featured speaker, blogged about her experience leading the forum.  Check out the Independent’s article and Avery’s blog post.

“Now what?” is the question we are left with.  There are a number of ways we can continue this movement to achieve full, equitable health care reform:

• Continue holding these fora and speak outs throughout the country – Raising Women’s Voices provides great resources for coordinating these public discussions.
• At the forum, Byllye Avery pressed all those in attendance to give Obama a call at the following number 202-465-1111 to urge him to press for reform that respects women’s health.
• Give our Senators a call at 888-423-5983
• Join the Permanent Comission on the Status of Women for Women’s Day at the Capitol Information Hearing, Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 10am-12pm at the legislative office building in Hartford, CT.  Come hear experts from across the state discuss many of the leading issues facing women today including: health care, economic security, environmental health, housing, discrimination, business development and education.  LEND YOUR VOICE!  PCSW invites attendees to provide testimony on the issues that affect them.  Testimony will be included in a public hearding report and will be distributed to Connecticut legislators.

Women’s Health Care Forum & Speak Out

with Special Guest Speaker, BYLLYE AVERY, the founder of The Avery Institute for Social Change and the Black Women’s Health Imperative

Tuesday, January 26th
6-8pm @ First and Summerfield Methodist Church of New Haven
425 College Street, New Haven 06511
For directions, click here.

Sponsored by: Raising Women’s Voices – Planned Parenthood of Southern New England – Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice – Permanent Commission on the Status of Women – Young Women’s Leadership Program – Connecticut Women’s Health Advisory Council – Greater New Haven NOW – People Against Injustice – New Haven Peace Commission – CT Citizen Action Group – Yale Coalition for Reproductive Justice – National Council of Jewish Women – AAUW – Connecticut Health Foundation – Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ

For more information, contact ydssems4rj@gmail.com.

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid proposed a new healthcare bill recently that maintains the ban on federal funding to cover abortion, but it separates private premiums from federal subsidies if abortion coverage were offered.  Read more on this version of reform legislation here.

Leaders in Congress and the White House have spoken out against the Stupak ban, and they have the power to strip this discriminatory proposal from the final health care reform bill.  It’s up to us to make sure they do so.  As the Senate will be voting on this bill on Dec. 2nd, TAKE ACTION NOW by…. 

-Participate in the National Day of Action in D.C.

-Signing a petition

-Calling your Senators toll-free at 888-423-5983.  Tell them: No Stupak–like Amendment in health care reform legislation.

Real health care reform must be free of religious ideology that will prevent women from making their own reproductive health care choices!

Wednesday, Dec. 2nd, 8PM in the Jonathan Edwards Room

Disposable Feminine products got you down?  Wonder why anyone would be down about this?

Come discuss the many different reusable options!!!! (increase your comfort, save some money, save some planet) with real-life testimonials from your YDS classmates, and guests from Forestry, Nursing and PhD programs!

Get some feminine bonding time into your week!

ENTER to WIN a free DIVA CUP! (Compliments of YECC and the WOmen’s Center)
Bloody Mary’s and V8 straight up provided to help the conversation flow (Fun non-alcoholic alternatives will be available)

**We respectfully ask that only women attend this session. 

All are invited to stop by the table in the Common Room to sign in support of federal funding for comprehensive sexuality education and/or talk about the recent legislation.  The petition reads as follows:

“As people of faith, we believe it is a moral imperative to provide young people with the information they need to protect themselves from disease and unintended pregnancy.  We call on public officials and policy makers to ensure that age-appropriate, medically accurate comprehensive sex education is taught in the schools.”

In the meantime, we encourage you to explore the following resources about sexuality education:

Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S.
Advocates for Youth
Religious Institute

We hope you can join us and many others throughout the country in making comprehensive sexuality education a reality this year.